LITERAL REMAINS

Sarah Langan is not a horror author for every horror fan.  She is in an advanced class all her own.  She is an acquired taste, and what a taste she is:  delicate, deep, and wrenching.  Langan’s latest novel, Audrey’s Door, is by far her best.  And that’s saying a lot considering her previous efforts, The Keeper and The Missing, were stellar books.  This is literature.

Audrey Lucas, small town girl living in the Big Apple, has broken up with her boyfriend, Saraub, and is striking out on her own.  The newbie in the office at the architectural firm that took a chance on her, Audrey struggles every day.  She struggles for the acceptance of others, and the acceptance of herself.  She lives with vivid memories of growing up with her mentally unstable mother (who lies comatose in a hospital) and with her own OCD that threatens to unhinge her.

Having lived in a flea bag motel since her relationship ended, she finds a dream apartment for rent at the legendary Breviary.  The Breviary is the last example of an architectural style known as Chaotic Naturalism (which, Audrey learns, is also a religion), and it’s rich with crazy residents and a bloody, macabre, history.  Audrey is told by the kindly super that the rent is cheap because just a few months previous the last tenant drowned her four children in the bathtub and then slit her own wrists.

Audrey rents the apartment anyway.  And if you think you know what happens next, you’d only be half right.  Audrey’s Door is a haunted house story, and it follows in that tradition rather well but adds some nice spices to the recipe that we don’t get very often these days:  nice chunks of character and story.  Audrey’s descent into madness is detailed, and because Audrey and her world seem so real, that is what makes it so terrifying.

This is a book for thinking adults when kiddie fare such as Brian Keene won’t satisfy your appetite.

4.5 out of 5
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